It’s been 9 years and Android still has a bad reputation when it comes to security

“That Broadcom bug makes me not want to use anything other than an iPhone or Pixel.”

That’s what I heard from an admittedly security conscious friend while talking about him getting a new phone. The bug being referenced here, in case you’re unaware, affected over 1 billion phones that use a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip and would have been an easy way for them all to be hacked in any number of ways.

Most likely the phone you’re reading this on has a nasty, exploitable bug.

You don’t have to worry about it if you have an iPhone or a Pixel (or any Nexus that’s still supported) or an Android-powered BlackBerry because it was patched before it was disclosed to the public. But the Pixel, late-model Nexuses and Android BlackBerrys sold in minuscule numbers compared to all the other Android phones (I’m being very generous here). That means millions and millions and millions of other Android-powered phones are still vulnerable. Including the Galaxy S8, even though every Android partner has had access to the patch as long as Google and BlackBerry and Apple have.

In “real life” this is both a problem and not a problem. One thing goes hand in hand with every announcement of malware or other tricks and tools that can be used to remotely hack a phone: it almost never happens. But it still could. Simple logic says one day it will. And unfortunately, outside of some sort of government oversight on phone software (which nobody wants), there is no way to fix it.